Networks of computers are widely used for file storage. Such computer networks typically include multiple computers connected to a common computer communication network. In some computer networks, a server computer provides services to a client computer. The client computer can be a remote computer that accesses services over the computer network, for example the internet. The server computer, in turn can access other networked computers providing services useful to the client.
Task responsiveness is an important characteristic of network-provided file storage services. If the server responds too slowly to a client request, the user operating the client will become frustrated and may even abandon the task. Hence, efficiency, and especially responsiveness, is an important issue for network services.
Responsiveness can be improved by increasing the network bandwidth to improve communication rates. This is particularly useful when large amounts of data are communicated between the various network computers, especially between a client and a server, and between a server and a networked storage system. One example of large data sets is a set of digital images. The time required to transmit digital images from a client to a server over a network can be lengthy. Responsiveness can also be improved by increasing the capacity of the various network elements, for example by using faster computers with more memory.
While increasing the performance of network devices is useful, there remains a need for improving networked computer services to provide responsive and efficient performance for given network and computing resources.